Just listening to Jeremy Vine, subject Cot Death is caused by sleeping with your baby, putting the onus on the parents – tune in or take a look at the article quoted below.
I would value your comments on this, I personally think there is nothing wrong with sleeping with your baby, I didn’t as he is such a light sleeper he was better in his moses basket but he always come into bed every morning for a cuddle. Do you sleep with your newborn?

More than half of cot deaths happen when a baby is sleeping with a parent, a study has revealed.
Researchers said this could be linked to the baby’s parent having been drinking or taking drugs.

Despite a dramatic drop in the rate of cot death in the UK since the early 1990s, experts are advising parents to avoid dangerous co-sleeping arrangements.

The study was led by a team of researchers at Bristol and Warwick universities.

They studied all unexpected infant deaths – aged from birth to two years old – in the south west of England from January 2003 to December 2006.

The parents were interviewed shortly after the death and information was collected on alcohol and drug use.

It is really important that parents should not fall asleep with their baby on a sofa as it is very, very dangerous.

Lead author of research Professor Peter Fleming

A detailed investigation of the scene and circumstances of death was also conducted by trained professionals.

Of the 80 cot deaths analysed, more than half (54%) occurred while co-sleeping compared to one-fifth (20%) co-sleeping rate among both control groups.

Much of this risk may be explained by the combination of parental alcohol or drug use prior to co-sleeping (31% compared with 3% random controls), and the high proportion of co-sleeping deaths on a sofa (17% compared with 1% random controls), say the authors.

A fifth of cot death infants were found with a pillow and a quarter were swaddled, suggesting potentially new risk factors emerging.

Lead author Professor Peter Fleming, Professor of Infant Health and Development Physiology at Bristol University, said: “It is really important that parents should not fall asleep with their baby on a sofa as it is very, very dangerous.”

2 responses to “Does sleeping with your baby cause cot death – current discussion on BBC radio 2”

Personally, i think its b******t. I have had all 3 of my children (when babies) sleep with me. My first,(now 22) because she had terrible colic and it was alot easier to comfort her while next to me instead of disturbing her sleep by lifting her from the cot. My second(now 14) had pyloric stenosis and i kept him in bed with me to make sure he didn’t choke on his vomit while asleep. My 3rd (coming up to her 5th Birthday) had no health problems while a baby, but i just loved the closeness as i did with my other 2

I think you are right, I’ve heard so many ‘saved’ babies stories because they were right there and the mother knew there was something wrong but wouldn’t have if they were not next to them. As usual, I think this has been blown out of all proportion – the main factor being if you have taken drugs or have drunk yourself stupid then it is a risk, well do we need research to tell us that?!!!!